The Coimbatore Corporation has begun, rather restarted, the Geographical Information System (GIS) survey in five wards.
Corporation Commissioner T.K. Ponnusamy says that the civic body and the project implementing agency, Tata Consultancy Services, have chosen a ward from each of the five zones in such a way that the wards formed part of the old Corporation area.
In the five wards, Corporation’s bill collectors and meter readers, accompanied by an equal number of staff from TCS will go on a door-to-door data collection drive to gather information.
Deputy Commissioner S. Sivarasu says that enumerators will collect the assessment number, details about the property owner, the extent of the property, etc., and append it to the data collected through satellite images.
Corporation will assign an identity number to the building to help automate the process.
This number will also help the assessed use the number to pay tax or carry out any transaction related to the assessed property. The Corporation expects to complete the work in the five wards in a month and in all the old Corporation area wards (60) in four months.
Mr. Ponnusamy says that in the process, if the Corporation finds establishments that are without assessment, it will give self-assessment forms to the owners to enable them to have the property assessed, change the type of assessment if the enumerators find domestic establishments being used without authorisation for commercial or industrial purposes.
The Corporation’s decision to rollout the project to the 60 wards followed the success it had with the exercise it carried in Ward 38.
Mr. Sivarasu says that the door-to-door exercise will also help the Corporation see an increase in revenue for the two reasons the Commissioner cited.
“The increase could be up to 10 per cent.”
He, however, clarified that the exercise was not aimed at property tax revision.
The Corporation had earlier attempted to carry out the GIS survey, which is a part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, but it failed.
